The World Health Organisation (WHO) has described the monkeypox outbreak as “atypical” but two leading scientists have claimed it is not the next pandemic. It comes as Scotland’s chief medical officer has told people to “take a breath and calm down” over cases of monkeypox in England.
Professor David Heymann, an expert on infectious disease epidemiology at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said it will not spread in the same manner as coronavirus. He told the PA news agency: “This will not be a pandemic as we know pandemics, but it certainly is possible that this disease has spread in many different parts of the world already and we are just beginning to identify it.
“It is not transmitted by air, we don’t believe, so it’s not a respiratory infection like SARS-Coronavirus-2 (Covid-19), so it will not spread in the same manner.” Prof Heymann, the WHO’s former assistant director-general for health security and environment, added: “It is transmitted from people who have monkeypox to people who don’t have monkeypox by close physical contact with the sore or with the open sore that is causing the disease.
